Bittersweet Memories
by watchitstark
Summary: Sometimes memories that hurt and forbidden hopes were all that you have. Sansa Stark centric. Sansa/Margaery.


**Bittersweet Memories**

She'd been so close. She'd been closer than she'd ever honestly expected to get, and she'd had that been cruelly ripped from her grasp. Now she stood, more alone than she had ever expected with a husband she had never wanted and a deep longing in her heart.

A longing for the flowers and beautiful weather of Highgarden.

A longing for love and for one person in particular.

Another reason for the tears; her longing was not for Loras. No, not Loras at all, in fact, however much she had played the doting, love struck fool. She didn't feel that for him, not since Joffrey had made her wise to the ways of men, not since she had felt the lingering glances of the men at the court, but seen the way that Loras would prefer to gaze at roses and talk about brooches.

The only person that had extended hope to her had been Margaery, so maybe it made sense to be feeling this for her, but it went against everything she had always thought that she wanted. She wanted to marry a beautiful man who won her hand in a delightful tourney, and they would have beautiful children and live in a beautiful garden. Suddenly she longed for the sweet summer air of Highgarden and the older woman's hand in her own.

She had always liked beautiful things.

Their children would be beautiful, she mused. Their home would be beautiful and her life would be beautiful. Maybe she would manage to gain back some of the family she had lost. Maybe Margaery and their beautiful children would fill a hole that desperately needed filling. Would fill the hole that was left by the fact that she was alone. All alone and no one to help her. Her entire family was gone and it was their entire fault. The Lannisters who had not even just been content with disposing of her family, but they'd had to make her one of them too.

She had often thought that things could not get any worse, but she knew they could. She knew Tywin Lannister wanted a baby in her, and soon. And she knew that Margaery was not in a position to do anything, with this sudden marriage to the imp. There was nothing any of the Tyrells could do, though she still often spent her afternoons with the older brunette and her relatives, she took it as a chance to get away. Though her poker face never fell, she still felt more at home, more relaxed, with Margaery at her side.

She wished to become a Tyrell so badly, she wished to become anyone other than Sansa Stark, the Key to the North. She was not the key to anything, apart from a very one-sided conversation. Her skills as a conversationalist had dropped recently, but she had decided that people would just blame that on the loss of every member of her family, as opposed to being because she found it hard to resist bursting into tears, or acidly slicing into whichever member of her new family she was talking to.

She supposed that she was actually Sansa Lannister now, the wolf turned reluctant lion.

She suddenly longed for Lady, to have her there so that she could bury her face in her coarse fur and cry for a while, so that she had something to hold on to during the cold, lonely days of roaming the castle. So that she had someone there with her that was not a Lannister spy. Someone to whom she could whisper things in the darkness and receive comfort in return, even if it was not comfort in the form of words. Maybe she would ask Tyrion for a wolf pup of some sort, she thought that with his expansive funds he might be able to get one for her, he seemed eager to please her in some way, as though if he bought her nice things it could make up for the wrong that his father had done both of them.

She understood that he wanted to be in this position as much as she did. She saw that Shae was his in some capacity, and they were fighting because he hadn't told her until he told Sansa. She understood much more than anyone realised. She knew that the Kingslayer loved the Queen Regent more than she loved him, and she knew that Queen Cersei drank because her father would never treat her as a man, and she would spend her whole life being disrespected because she was not a man. She knew that Renly Baratheon and Loras had been in love, and that that was why Loras would never love her as she had once wished.

She knew that what she felt for Margaery was unlike anything else. She knew that there was no way for them to run away to Highgarden and find their happy ending as she had dreamed so many times, and she knew that she would probably never see her little sister again. She would never even get to tell her how much she loved her regardless of the fact that they had been so drastically different. Saying goodbye probably would have been more painful, she supposed dimly.

She sighed heavily and attempted to shove these thoughts back behind crumbling walls, into what had become her tower of painful memories and thoughts that she had constructed in her mind as she heard footsteps draw close, punctuated by the noise of a dress swishing across dusty stone.

"Sansa, I had hoped to find you here," the older brunette joined her in gazing out across the Blackwater, her dress whispering softly as it settled around her, brushing against the auburn haired girl's.

"Hello," she smiled tightly and glanced in her direction. A part of her had wished it had not been this particular woman; she needed some time to get her thoughts into some sort of order, into something that she could fathom into some sort of sense, into something that she could understand.

"I find myself curious to hear more tales of your childhood, I simply cannot imagine how Winterfell can be as comfortable as you say," even Margaery had to admit that it was a poor excuse to talk to this grieving girl, and maybe the wrong time to bring up such memories. But she wished to find ways to talk to her, and she always had to make the approach.

Sansa smiled softly, but widely, as she recalled happy memories of her days in the dark castle that had always been a home to her, even later as she wished for the glamour and warmth of King's Landing. "There were fires in every room; even on the coldest, darkest day or winter it was not cold inside the castle, though often the corridors would be colder than anticipated."

"But it must have been dark and dank, how can that be enjoyable," she questioned with a half-smile, knowing that Sansa would be glad of the chance to delve into memories, to defend her home. She knew that the Key to the North would be glad to forget that her home was burned down and her family was gone, even if it was just for the moment.

For now, this conversation would have to be their refuge, they thought and shared a warm smile, and then they linked arms and walked through the castle, skirts swishing behind them. Sansa would swear the she could almost hear the padding of soft paws following them through the warm halls.


End file.
